things could be worse...

well, long time no blog...you can blame le tour for taking up all my free time for the last 'few' (10!!) days. training's been going really well, i'm not really running yet but will hopefully be starting to soon, London's looking more and more like swim, bike, jog :-(

i had to go to the hospital today to see a cardiologist about my pigs heart. a few years ago i suffered ~ 4 episodes of heart palpitations where i would be aware of my heart beating faster than usual whilst i was sitting down following training. this lead to me being referred for a cardiac screen via CRY, as expected the palpitations were attributed to my training and not considered to be a problem however an incidental finding was that i had a bicuspid aortic valve - this is the valve between the left ventricle (a pumping chamber in the heart) and the aorta (the trunk artery of the body), it should be a 3 flap valve but mine only has 2 flaps.

being 17 and obviously immortal i didn't pay much attention to the diagnosis and just pottered on ignoring a couple of outpatient appointments and soon forgetting about the 'problem' altogether. however eventually i was nagged into getting my arse back in gear, which is how i came to find myself in a sweaty Eastbourne DGH consultation room this afternoon. after being told off for going awol (and more importantly wasting valuable NHS resources, i won't ever do this again) i was told that competing in triathlons was a pretty bad idea. this was because the problem valve caused my heart to have to work extra hard and this, together with intensive training/racing, meant that my heart had grown (undergone hypertrophy) and was too big (clearly i've got a lot of love to give).

cue a round of negotiations between me and Dr Cardiologist that would have made the UN proud, we eventually agreed that I could continue training hard but i would need to stop training hard around the age of 30 and definitely give up caffeine...deal!! needless to say it wasn't a discussion that i ever dreamt i would be having and i sat in the waiting room feeling a bit numb, whilst i was waiting for the discharge papers i overheard/earwigged a conversation another patient was having with her husband after being diagnosed with valvular heart disease and angina, she had been told that she we need an invasive operation and, more importantly to her, that she would need to stop picking up her grandchildren...i have to give up diet coke...things could be a lot worse